{"id":108216,"date":"2020-10-31T14:26:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T21:26:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108216"},"modified":"2020-10-31T14:26:04","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T21:26:04","slug":"england-pm-announces-four-week-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/31\/england-pm-announces-four-week-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"England PM announces four-week  lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy BBC<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p><strong>Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a second national lockdown for England to prevent a &#8220;medical and moral disaster&#8221; for the NHS.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said Christmas may be &#8220;very different&#8221; but he hoped taking action now would mean families can gather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Non-essential shops and hospitality will have to close for four weeks on Thursday, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But unlike the restrictions in spring, schools, colleges and universities can stay open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After 2 December, the restrictions would be eased and regions would go back to the tiered system, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Johnson said: &#8220;Christmas is going to be different this year, perhaps very different, but it&#8217;s my sincere hope and belief that by taking tough action now we can allow families across the country to be together.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-54751632\">&#8216;A new lockdown will be far worse for businesses&#8217;<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-54750775\">Covid spreading faster than &#8216;worst-case scenario&#8217;<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-53954492\">Winter virus plans revealed in leaked Sage report<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The prime minister told a Downing Street news conference that he was &#8220;truly, truly sorry&#8221; for the impact on businesses, but said the furlough system paying 80% of employee wages will be extended through November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said hospitals even in the south-west of England, where cases are among the lowest, will run out of capacity in weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Doctors and nurses would be forced to choose which patients to treat, who would get oxygen and who wouldn&#8217;t, who would live and who would die,&#8221; Mr Johnson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Takeaways will be allowed to stay open as pubs, bars and restaurants close and people are being told they can only meet one person from outside their household outdoors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Johnson, who chaired a cabinet meeting on Saturday afternoon, will make a statement to Parliament on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UK recorded another 21,915 confirmed coronavirus cases on Saturday, bringing the total since the pandemic began to 1,011,660.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another 326 people were reported to have died within 28 days of a positive test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UK is the ninth country to reach the milestone of a million cases &#8211; after the US, India, Brazil, Russia, France, Spain, Argentina and Colombia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the true number of infections is expected to be higher due to a lack of widespread testing at the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Full Story <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-54763956<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy BBC Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a second national lockdown for England to prevent a &#8220;medical and moral disaster&#8221; for the NHS. He said Christmas may be &#8220;very different&#8221; but he hoped taking action now would mean families can gather. Non-essential shops and hospitality will have to close for four weeks on Thursday, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}